Sex, Lies and the CEO

by Barbara Dunlop

  “Everything you’ve done so far has been a pretty complicated lie, Darci Lake. This is a brilliant plan. It’ll give you plenty of time alone in his basement.”

  Darci thought it through. “He did show me where they hide the key to the wine cellar.”

  “It’s locked?”

  “They have some pretty expensive wines down there.” Darci felt guilty all over again, for having barely touched the second bottle.

  Jennifer was grinning. “You can do this.”

  Darci had to admit, she could. Though it felt fundamentally wrong, it also felt fundamentally logical. She couldn’t snoop properly when Shane was around. So she had to do it when he was away.

  * * *

  Shane frowned at Tuck from across a table in the restaurant of the Platinum Hotel in Paris. “I should have left you in Chicago and flown commercial.”

  “Give your head a shake,” said Tuck, sprinkling salt on his scrambled eggs. “You were in a hurry. And what’s the point of owning a transportation company, if I can’t make use of the transportation?”

  “I didn’t expect the third degree.”

  “I only said you’re slipping,” said Tuck. “She seemed like a perfectly nice woman.”

  “I was jet-lagged last night. And I’m here to focus on business, not women.”

  “And I told you, she didn’t seem like the type to still be hanging around this morning.”

  “And this way, she’s not,” said Shane.

  His meeting this afternoon with Beaumont Air was vital to the financial health of Colborn Aerospace.

  “That’s playing it ludicrously safe,” said Tuck, his hand moving to the small pitcher of maple syrup.

  “This way, I’m focused.” Shane didn’t care to admit that the beautiful leggy brunette who’d approached their table in the lounge last night hadn’t interested him in the least. His tastes ran to Darci right now, and nobody else seemed to measure up.

  “You’re distracted.”

  “Yes.” That much was true. “By the Beaumont meeting.”

  Tuck shook his head. “I’m not talking about business. I’m still talking about women. So, is it Darci Lake?”

  Shane’s guard went up. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Are you sleeping with her?”

  “No.” The answer was sharper than necessary.

  Tuck drew back and held up his palms in surrender.

  “No,” Shane repeated in a moderated tone. “And what makes you think I might be?”

  “Because you practically challenged me to a duel over a dance. Did you see her again?”

  “You mean after the search-and-rescue party?”

  “Why are you answering my questions with questions?”

  “Why are you?”

  Tuck gave a reluctant chuckle. “You saw her again.”

  “Yes,” Shane admitted.

  “But nothing happened.”

  They hadn’t slept together. But Shane found he didn’t want Tuck to think it was platonic, either. “I wouldn’t exactly say nothing.”

  “Ahhh...” Tuck’s eyes lit with interest.

  Shane immediately realized his mistake. He couldn’t have it both ways, and he had no intention of elaborating. What he wanted was for Tuck to stay away from her.

  “Justin interrupted us,” he said. “And I found out I had to leave town. But I’m seeing her again next weekend.”

  “She seems pretty great,” said Tuck.

  Shane frowned at him. “You had your chance.”

  “I didn’t exactly have a chance. But, you have dibs. I get that.”

  “I do have dibs,” said Shane, focusing his attention on breakfast, cutting into the crispy waffle. “So, how exactly did you meet her?”

  “I can’t remember,” Tuck answered. “Some social function or the other. I don’t really know her all that well.”

  Shane was relieved to hear that.

  “She’s really down-to-earth,” he said, smiling. “She’s scared of dogs.”

  “Your dogs?”

  “All dogs. Gus and Boomer about gave her a heart attack.”

  “You know your voice goes all soft when you talk about her. And your expression gets all moony eyed.”

  Shane glanced up. “Get lost.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “She’s refreshing,” said Shane. “I’m so tired of the games women play, I can’t even tell you.”

  “I hear you,” said Tuck.

  Tuck’s phone rang on the table, and he glanced down. “Dixon and Kassandra are separating.”

  “What?” Shane drew back in surprise.

  Tuck lifted the phone. “This is Dixon now.”

  Shane couldn’t believe it. Tuck’s older brother had been happily married for nearly ten years.

  “Hey, Dix,” Tuck said into the phone. He was silent at first, and then his expression sobered. “I’m in Paris. I flew over with Shane.”

  Shane took another bite of his waffle, while cataloguing the possible reasons behind what seemed like a sudden marriage breakup.

  “You bet,” said Tuck. “No, it’s a great idea. We’ll see you there.” He ended the call and put down the phone.

  “What happened?” asked Shane.

  “He came home early from a business trip and caught her with some other guy,” said Tuck. “It’s as cliché as it comes.”

  “Kassandra had an affair?” Shane had a hard time wrapping his head around it. He knew Kassandra, had known her for years. She’d seemed incredibly devoted to Dixon.

  “Dixon was ready to kill them both.”

  “No kidding.” Shane couldn’t imagine what he might do to a man who messed around with his wife. He couldn’t even imagine what he’d do to a guy who messed around with Darci.

  The thought brought him up short, and he shook off the ridiculous notion. They’d barely dated.

  “Who’s the guy?” he asked Tuck.

  “Some midlevel executive from Resin Pharmaceutical.”

  “You don’t think Dixon would really do him harm?” Shane couldn’t bring himself to care about the stranger’s fate, but he didn’t want Dixon to get into any trouble.

  “I sure hope not. He’s coming to meet us here.”

  “In Paris?”

  “He’s in London.” Tuck glanced at his watch. “Figures it’ll take him an hour.”

  “I thought we had his jet?”

  “We took a Tucker Transportation jet. But Dixon has his own.”

  “All to himself? All the time?”

  “He’s the face of the company, now that Dad’s schedule is cut back. He needs to be where he needs to be.”

  As an only child, Shane sometimes wondered how Tuck felt about playing second fiddle to his older brother. He’d asked once, but Tuck had laughed the question off and moved the conversation to another topic.

  “You own an aerospace company,” said Tuck. “I can’t believe you still fly commercial.”

  “We build planes. We don’t operate them. And I’m a proud supporter of the commercial aviation industry.”

  “Your time is valuable.”

  “Everybody’s time is valuable.” Shane finished the last bite of his waffle. “What’s Dixon going to do about Kassandra?”

  “Divorce her, I assume.”

  Again, Shane tried to imagine how he’d feel in that situation. Darci seemed to be his benchmark all of a sudden. Would he divorce her if she messed around? Okay, presupposing they’d gotten married first. Would he divorce her or just make the guy disappear and hope she fell back in love with him?

  “Women,” said Tuck with a disgusted shake of his head. He lifted his coffee cup.

  Shane shut down the distur
bing line of thought.

  “Kassandra seemed like one of the good ones,” he said to Tuck.

  That someone like Bianca had betrayed Shane hadn’t come as a huge surprise. Sure, the method and magnitude of her betrayal had been unexpected. But he’d dated her looking for fun, not for loyalty and commitment. But Kassandra had married Dixon, pledged to love and honor him.

  “Just goes to show you,” said Tuck.

  “That you can’t trust women?” asked Shane, his mind moving inexorably back to Darci. It would be nice to be able to trust at least one of them.

  “That the sainted Dixon doesn’t always make the right decisions,” said Tuck.

  Shane checked out his friend’s tight expression. “Been holding that back for a while?”

  Tuck drained his coffee cup. “You ready to go?”

  “Tuck?” Shane prompted, wondering if Tuck wanted to open up about his brother.

  “I told Dix we’d meet him at the airport,” said Tuck.

  Shane waited another moment but then let the subject drop. “We’re picking him up?”

  “Might as well. Unless you had something else in mind, maybe a romantic stroll along the Seine?”

  “You’re not as pretty as you think you are,” Shane drawled.

  Tuck grinned and tossed some euros on the table.

  They left the hotel, and as their driver took them efficiently through the streets of Paris, Shane couldn’t help but wonder some more about Tuck’s relationship with his brother. Tuck was invariably respectful of Dixon, but there had to be resentment on some level. Why else would Tuck so studiously avoid becoming more involved in running the business?

  Shane was tempted to ask outright, but the opportunity had passed, and Tuck was now giving an ad hoc tour of Paris, pointing out parks, cemeteries and countless historical buildings.

  When they arrived at the private airport, Dixon’s jet was taxiing from the runway.

  The driver pulled the SUV to a halt, allowing Shane and Tuck to exit. After it came to a stop, the door of the Gulfstream yawned open, the staircase descended and Dixon emerged.

  Their driver was quick to move forward in order to offer assistance, obviously sensing Dixon’s importance.

  “He’s better at being a billionaire than we are,” Shane said to Tuck as Dixon reached the bottom of the staircase, his haircut perfect, shoes polished to a shine, wearing a crisp, custom-made suit, with a leather overnight bag in his hand. Power and prestige seemed to exude from his pores.

  “He does have a knack,” said Tuck.

  The driver took Dixon’s bag and showed him to the SUV.

  “Hey, bro,” said Tuck, scrutinizing his brother’s expression. “How are you holding up?”

  “Thanks for coming,” said Dixon, and he gave Tuck a brisk hug.

  Shane felt a pang of envy. Whatever Tuck’s feeling about their respective roles in Tucker Transportation, he clearly loved his brother.

  Dixon gave Shane a nod. “Hey, Shane.”

  “Sorry to hear about Kassandra,” said Shane, stepping up to shake Dixon’s hand.

  “Life can be unkind,” said Dixon. “Then again, so was she. I hear the Gobrecht deal fell apart?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” said Shane. “I’m here trying to save Beaumont.”

  The driver opened the front passenger door, and Dixon took the seat.

  Shane and Tuck climbed into the back.

  Dixon turned as the engine revved. “You taking another run at Gobrecht afterward?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be much point. Justin spent half the afternoon on the phone with them last week. I don’t think it’s salvageable.”

  “It’s not, at least, not with a defeatist attitude like that,” said Dixon.

  “I prefer to think of it as realistic,” said Shane.

  The car exited the gates of the airport, and they turned onto the main road.

  “You should go talk to them in person,” said Dixon.

  “I don’t see how I’d even get an appointment,” said Shane.

  The last time they’d talked, the Gobrecht president had hung up on him.

  Tuck sat silent in his seat, smirking at Shane being the object of Dixon’s criticism.

  “Show up on his doorstep,” said Dixon.

  “He has security.”

  Dixon shrugged. “It’s worth a try, man. At the very least, it’ll make an impression. And it’ll give us something to do. God knows I’m in no hurry to get back to Chicago.”

  “I know some great nightclubs in Berlin,” said Tuck. “Hottest women east of Stockholm.”

  “I’m—” Dixon stopped himself. “Yeah, I guess I’m not anymore.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to do?” asked Shane, moving past the question of Gobrecht. Unlike Tuck, he wasn’t compelled to take Dixon’s advice.

  “Blow the dust off the prenup and sic my lawyer on her.”

  “You’re assets are protected?” asked Shane.

  Tuck scoffed out a laugh. “The corporation’s all Mom and Dad,” he said.

  “Shares don’t come to us until Dad dies,” Dixon added. “He always worried that some gold-digging woman would get her hands on Tucker Transportation. Never thought it would be Kassandra.”

  “So, your personal wealth...?” asked Shane, surprised to learn he didn’t already control a portion of Tucker Transportation.

  Dixon shared a grin with Tuck. “Is trivial.”

  “Does Kassandra know that?”

  “She will soon,” replied Dixon.

  “Women,” said Tuck, “should come with a warning label.”

  Shane pictured Darci, her clear green eyes, her open smile, her auburn hair, tousled after he’d kissed her so long and so hard. What kind of a warning label would she wear?

  Hot? Combustible? Handle With Care? Obsession Can Occur if Touched?

  Yeah, that sounded about right.

  * * *

  Darci couldn’t believe the plan had worked. The housekeeper had remembered her from the weekend and completely bought the story about her lost earring. She’d offered to help Darci look through the wine cellar, but Darci had insisted she could manage alone. When she’d said that Shane had shown her the key’s hiding place, it had solidified her credibility.

  She was beginning to think she might have a future in espionage, after all.

  She first unlocked and left the door to the wine cellar ajar to keep the story credible, then she headed down the main hallway of the basement. Her heart was thudding in her chest, and her palms were breaking out in a sweat. But she forced herself to take all the side passages and open all the doors.

  She was careful to make sure none of them led to the yard. The last thing she needed was a pair of monster dogs barreling toward her again. She was twenty minutes into her search, then thirty minutes, then thirty-five, when finally she hit pay dirt.

  At the end of a secondary hallway, she found a big storage room. It had row upon row of industrial shelving. And on those shelves were file boxes, all labeled with the month and year.

  She breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief, then quickly made her way along the cartons, following the chronology of the dates, going back to the very beginning of the company.

  Then she found them. Boxes labeled D&I Holdings.

  After a moment of elation, her heart sank. There had to be fifty containers. It would take her days to look through them all.

  She heard voices in the distance, and her heart leapt to her throat. After a frozen second, she jumped to action, hit the light switch, slipped back into the corridor, closed the door behind her and rushed toward the main hallway.

  Inside her head, she concocted a story about retracing her route with Shane. She’d tell them about the dogs getting in on t
he weekend and how she hadn’t found the earring in the wine cellar, so now she was looking farther afield. She could keep a straight face while she told those lies. She had no choice.

  The voices were male. They were coming closer. She held her breath.

  But then the footsteps veered off, heading up the stairs to the main floor. The voices faded.

  Darci nearly slumped to the floor in relief. She knew she should end this now, go back upstairs, tell the housekeeper she had found the earring and call it a day. But this was by far her best hope of finding something valuable. She couldn’t imagine how she’d get another opportunity to be in the mansion without Shane.

  She forced herself to go back into the storage room.

  Her hand trembled as she reached for the light switch. She pulled it back to her body, rubbing it, telling herself to get a grip. Then she flicked on the lights.

  As the fluorescents buzzed to life above her, she returned to the location of the D&I Holdings files. She pulled the oldest box from a shelf and opened the lid. Dust wafted through the air, and she waved it aside, peering at the neat rows of paper and file folders.

  She found invoices and check stubs, rent, gas, water and power. The records showed the company had started in South Chicago in a leased warehouse that seemed to cost a fortune to heat. She came across invoices for used equipment, computers, tools, even workbenches and shelving. It was clear the two men had worked hard, cobbling together the equipment they needed to develop their early prototypes.

  The records told a story, and she lost track of time until new voices startled her, and she jumped to her feet. There wasn’t time to put everything back, so she went for the door, dashed out and shut it behind her.

  “Miss Lake?” a woman’s voice called in the distance.

  Darci knew it had to be the housekeeper. She scrambled to the end of the hall and peeked around the corner.

  “Miss Lake?”

  “I’m here,” Darci called out behind her. She struggled to keep from sounding breathless.

  The housekeeper turned. “There you are. I got worried.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Darci, walking forward. “I couldn’t find it in the wine cellar. So I retraced my steps.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “I did,” said Darci, digging into the pocket of her jeans to produce the earring she’d planted there. “I’m so relieved. Did I tell you it was my grandmother’s?”